– Orthodox Christians celebrated Easter on Sunday, while many EU countries have a holiday this Thursday. They include: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden.

LOWER ROAMING CHARGES: In the final step before mobile roaming charges are abolished in Europe in mid-2017, users will pay a maximum €0.05 per minute for each call and €0.02 per SMS on top of their normal charges when traveling outside their home country within the EU. For data, users will pay an extra €0.05 per MB.

STOP THE SPITZENKANDIDAT: According to Süddeutsche Zeitung, Merkel and Cameron are planning to team up to unwind the idea of party candidates for European Commission president in 2019, though it’s not certain whether either of them will still be in office by then. http://politi.co/1X2o6rZ

**A message from UNESDA, Soft Drinks Europe: We reduced calories in our beverages by 11.5% from 2000-2013. And we continue to do more through reformulation of existing products, introduction of new products with no or low calories/sugar and offering smaller, single-serve packs to promote portion control and moderation. http://www.unesda.eu/**

MUST READ — THE ECONOMIST LAYS INTO GERMANY FOR ITS STANCE ON ECB: A quite extraordinary leader article, and longer analysis piece from The Economist. The magazine slams German and Dutch leaders for wanting central bank independence only when it suits them. “Germany should stop whining about negative rates and start borrowing … Germany and the Netherlands could have enacted reforms long ago to make household wealth less dependent on interest rates.”

ECB’S BENOÎT CŒURÉ, AND ITALIAN LEADERS ALSO PILE ON GERMANY: Writing Sunday in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Cœuré, a member of the ECB’s executive board, said: “Without our measures, current inflation would be much lower and the inflation outlook would be much worse. Moreover, economic activity would be subdued, there would be fewer jobs, and a sound public budget would be more difficult to achieve, even in Germany.”

Matteo Renzi and his finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan also told journalists over the weekend that Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann should stay out of Italy’s fiscal business. Padoan thinks Weidmann should instead study economic history books, which he says show that deficit spending is the route out of recession. http://bit.ly/24tuWch

ECONOMY — EU DOING BETTER THAN EXPECTED, BUT STILL LAGGING: GDProse 0.5 percent across the bloc and 0.6 percent in the eurozone, beating expectations, according to preliminary results. Eurostat figures have unemployment in at 10.2 percent, a 5-year low. And the eurozone has slipped into deflation in April, at -0.2 percent, down from zero in March.

TRADE — BATTLE OVER LEAKED TTIP NEGOTIATION DOCUMENTS: Greenpeace will publish this morning 15 documents, totaling 248 pages, related to TTIP negotiations. The NGO says the documents prove the U.S. is attempting to subvert EU law. Le Monde already has the papers and from its analysis there’s no indication the EU has conceded to U.S. demands. The French paper says the documents do suggest the EU is more enthusiastic about completing TTIP than the U.S. http://bit.ly/1NMOcNI. Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which also got the documents early, says the U.S. wants to use the easing of export controls on European cars as a bargaining chip to force Europe to buy more U.S. agricultural products. Reuters has more: http://reut.rs/1W2eChn

TRADE — NEW COMMISSION SURVEILLANCE ON STEEL: A “prior surveillance system for import of steel products” means you will now require an import license to bring steel into the EU for sale. The rule will expire in four years.

MIGRATION — TURKEY SAID TO MEET 62 OF 72 CONDITIONS FOR VISA-FREE TRAVEL:
The Commission will recommend granting visa-free travel to Turkey on Wednesday after the country met 62 out of 72 conditions, writes Matthew Karnitschnig. Barring a last-minute complication, the Commission will make a “qualified” recommendation for visa liberalization, according to EU officials, contingent on Turkey ticking off the remaining 10 conditions. http://politi.co/23hH91i

TERRORISM — EU BLAMES US FOR TECH FIRMS FOR POOR DATA SHARING: “European counterterrorism officials say American laws and corporate policies are hampering their efforts to prevent the next attack, because legal procedures for getting international evidence from U.S.-based social-media firms are dangerously outdated.” From the Wall Street Journal: http://on.wsj.com/1O6isOk

A REFORMIST REVIVAL IN EUROPE? Amid the stasis and division, Dalibor Rohac looks at Europe from a distance and sees young guns with a chance of forcing often spoken about and rarely seen structural reforms. Renzi, Macron and Mitsotakis are reference points. http://politi.co/1TnpVdE

GERMANY — FIVE TAKEAWAYS FROM SUMMIT OF RIGHT-WING AfD: Anti-Islam, pro-Putin and after mainstream power: Germany’s AfD has set its sights on Merkel’s job, writes Janosch Delcker. So what should we expect from this upstart insurgent party ahead of the 2017 election? “So far, the AfD has won most of its support by mobilizing people who rarely vote or winning over disaffected people from other smaller parties, such as the far-left Die Linke. Now, it is targeting supporters of the mainstream parties.” http://politi.co/1QLUIyG

GERMANY — BERLIN IS TALKING ABOUT AIRBNB: There’s now a €100,000 fine for property owners in Berlin if they rent out their apartment on Airbnb or similar home-letting platforms. Individual spare rooms can still be rented out under the law on the prohibition of misuse of housing. http://bit.ly/1Te253C

ITALY — WHAT ROMANS ARE TALKING ABOUT: The Roman city government handed out thousands of apartments in the city for as little as €10 a month. The public housing was supposed to go to low income earners or charities, but much of it didn’t. The records of who got what were forgotten until a clean-up started in 2016. http://nyti.ms/1YWe5ez

FRANCE — FRENCH INFLUENCE IN BRUSSELS, AMBASSADOR SPEAKS UP: Few ambassadors have a high profile in Brussels, but last week Pierre Sellal, of France, notably spoke about French influence in the European capital. VIDEO: http://bit.ly/24flGMb

FRANCE — MANUEL VALLS IS FIRED UP AND FIGHTING BACK: “Allies of Valls said the launch of “En Marche” had galvanized the prime minister not only to try to neutralize Macron, but also to isolate himself from the awkward legacy of Hollande and start refurbishing his own, unique brand of Socialist party politics,” Nicholas Vinocur writes: http://politi.co/1X3hycJ

UK — MEET JEREMY HUNT, THE MAN BEHIND THE UK DOCTORS’ STRIKES: Before becoming Britain’s health secretary, Jeremy Hunt imposed sweeping budget cuts as secretary of state for culture, media and sport and faced pressure to resign over allegations he was too close to Rupert Murdoch’s family during a takeover bid. When he was promoted to health, the Guardian described him as the “least mourned secretary of state in the culture department’s history.” Now he is locked in an even more consequential fight with doctors, which has resulted in unprecedented strikes. Helen Collis and Tom McTaguehttp://politi.co/1rbdzOC

UK — BITTER FIGHT TO BE LONDON MAYOR, LABOUR’S SADIQ KHAN IS 20 POINTS AHEAD: Khan, a human rights lawyer turned MP, is set to become the first Muslim mayor of a major European city. Reuters | Guardian | Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith in the Daily Mail (noteworthy for his doubling down on controversial rhetoric)

BELGIUM — THE FAINTING STATE? Six months after Tim King highlighted the notion that Belgium’s many layers of government aren’t working (refresher: http://politi.co/1T02qsC), Jean Quatremer joins the party in French daily Liberation. The state is “impotent” and “fainting” in Quatremer’s version. http://bit.ly/1SH4CE3

AUSTRIA — CHANCELLOR BOOED AT MAY DAY RALLY: Social Democratic Party supporters booed Chancellor Werner Faymann at a rally yesterday. Some want him to resign over the party’s abysmal performance in recent Austrian presidential elections. Francois Murphy http://reut.rs/1rKYVPc

RUSSIA — GERMANY’S EACH WAY BET: Angela Merkel’s office believes it’s out of question that Russia will regain entry into the G7 (formerly G8) grouping of powerful nations, Der Spiegel reports. In parallel, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told German newspaper Die Welt am Sonntag he is inviting Russia and Ukraine to talks in Berlin on May 11: “I think it is necessary that we now give new momentum to overcoming the obstacles between Kiev and Moscow.”

SYRIA — MORE EFFORTS TOWARD PEACE TALKS: As days of harsh bombing in Aleppo shredded the ceasefire over the weekend, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is in Geneva to discuss the Syrian conflict with his Jordanian and Saudi counterparts and the U.N. special envoy for Syria.

IRAN — MODERATES CLOSE TO CONTROL OF PARLIAMENT: Associated Press reports that moderates are by far the biggest bloc in Iran’s parliament after run-off elections, with 142 out of 290 seats. http://apne.ws/1Teaioj

WHAT THE EUROPEAN COMMENTARIAT IS TALKING ABOUT: TRUMP. Is he dangerous for Europe? Is Trumpophobia a real thing?

United Kingdom, Daily Telegraph: Janet Daly writes “Rage against the machine — the people’s furious dissatisfaction with the loss of any real sense of control over their own lives — has hit the governing classes of the West with a bang. The single thing that these phenomena have in common, whether it is the rise of the far right in Germany and France, the popularity of Donald Trump, whose foreign policy speech last week consisted of a stream of non sequiturs, … [is] that they are outside the limits of the accepted order.” http://bit.ly/1STuIGc

Switzerland, Neue Zürcher Zeitung: “Even with a team of consultants Trump still can’t put together a coherent program … When an establishment party throws itself at a nonsense politician and, like Trump, dissociates itself from foreign policy mainstays like NATO … it’s definitely an alarming state of affairs.” http://bit.ly/1VXpYmk

Austria, Der Standard: U.S. isolationism is nothing new. “The allies will have to shoulder heavier financial burdens instead of behaving like freeloaders.” http://bit.ly/1XXPkhQ

Belgium, De Morgen: No reason for Trumpophobia: “We forget that in a democracy leaders must behave themselves otherwise they get the boot … what you say to come to power is seldom what you do to stay in power.” http://bit.ly/1WuJBRJ

TRENDING — THE CV OF FAILURES: Princeton academic Johannes Haushofer’s list of all his rejections and failures is going viral: http://bit.ly/21npJ3P

BRUSSELS NEWS …

NEW CEO FOR EURACTIV: Laurent Ledoux, the man whose resignation as head of the Belgian federal public service for mobility and transport helped push Jacqueline Galant, the now ex-transport minister, to resign, is the new CEO of Euractiv. http://bit.ly/1NFoWbV

WE HEAR — EX-CEO RICK ZEDNÍK TO JOIN ‘WOMEN IN PARLIAMENTS’: That’s Silvana Koch-Mehrin’s new outfit … she quit European Parliament in 2011 after being caught plagiarizing her PhD thesis.

CERCLE GAULOIS HAS A WOMAN PROBLEM: The very fancy private members’ club Cercle Royal Gaulois, Artistique et Littéraire is attracting criticism on social media. Its board, for example, has 16 men and zero women. Its various committees have another 30 men and zero women, and its honorary member list includes EU luminaries such as Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Etienne Davignon, Frans van Daele and Belgian minister Armand de Decker. The club says: “Although rich in prestigious historical tradition, the Cercle Gaulois is nevertheless an institution firmly of its time.” http://bit.ly/1QCVuhu

OPENED: The main departure hall at Brussels Airport is opened again at partial capacity.

APPOINTED:Oliver Loebel will be the Secretary General for EurEau, the water lobby, from October 1. Neil Dhot will continue as interim secretary general until the end of May. Jean-Marc Janaillac will become the new CEO of Air France-KLM, leaving his post as CEO of bus and train operator Transdev.

LEAVING: Dörte Höppner, the chief executive of the private equity lobby Invest Europe, is quitting to join a German law firm. Jo Cornu the head of SNCB, the Belgian railway company, will leave at the end of 2016

NIXED: Halliburton and Baker Hughes have abandoned their proposed €24 billion tie-up after antitrust authorities moved to block the deal. http://on.ft.com/1SHxyvF

GOOD NEWS: 100EuropeanStartUps will feature a European success story every day for the next 100 days.

**A message from UNESDA, Soft Drinks Europe: The European soft drinks industry is an early mover on calorie and sugar reduction with the introduction of no and low calorie drinks in the 1970’s. We reduced overall calories per 100ml by 11.5% from 2000-2013 across Europe. Half of all new product introductions are no or low calorie drinks and these varieties now account for 30% or more of sales in several countries including Belgium, Denmark, Ireland and the UK. Meanwhile there are also more than 30 different single-serve packs smaller than 330ml (standard can) to choose from. That’s an increase of 150% since 2000. As well as making these available we invest in promoting them to help shape choice. http://www.unesda.eu/**